


anywhere with you

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Road Trips, Smoking, Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, running from your problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:15:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18294800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: “I've been to Titan but I've never been anywhere else,” Peter confesses one night when tears have taken the place of whiskey.“He promised to show me the world,” he says, and it’s not--it’s not quite asking for something.It’s not not asking either.“I’ve been everywhere,” Bucky says, and there’s a hint of Winter in his voice that makes Peter’s head roll to look at him. “But I don’t think I’ve seen anything.”





	anywhere with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VerdantMoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/gifts).



“I've been to Titan but I've never been anywhere else,” Peter confesses one night when tears have taken the place of whiskey.

“He promised to show me the world,” he says, and it’s not--it’s not quite asking for something.

It’s not _not_ asking either.

“I’ve been everywhere,” Bucky says, and there’s a hint of Winter in his voice that makes Peter’s head roll to look at him. “But I don’t think I’ve seen anything.”

~*~

They’re bound together, now.

Not necessity, really--there were other people, for both of them, people who understood better what each was going through.

But they found each other, often enough, at the memorial, that it became easy, falling into each other’s space.

And Winter watched him, when Peter tripped too close to dangerous, when the grief loomed large and inescapable, tugged him back, into the cool metal embrace.

They never talk about it--about why Winter watches him or why Peter trips along the edges of buildings or the endless nights sitting silent next to a silent stone.

There’s no real need.

~*~

They died.

And they came back and Peter thinks--it’s not fair. Because he didn’t want to come back without Tony.

“Sometimes I wish they hadn’t succeeded,” he murmurs, and Bucky looks down at him, his eyes bright and sad and knowing.

“Me too, kid.”

~*~

“We could go,” Bucky says one day. It’s the end of a bad day, the end of a bad week, and he feels wrung out, scraped raw, the ghosts that haunt them clinging too tight, and Peter is still, for the first time, in his arms.

He wonders if it’s exhaustion or the skunky smoke billowing through the apartment.

“Where?” Peter asks. _Where can we go that we won’t see them?_

“Anywhere. Everywhere. See the whole world.”

Peter is quiet, long enough Bucky thinks he’s dismissed it. And then, soft and shy. “Yeah. I think--yeah.”

~*~

They take three weeks to get things at home in order, and then Peter arrives at Bucky’s door, and Winter frowns at him, at the too light bag on his back and the gauntness of his frame, and sighs. “Feed you first. Then we’ll go.”

~*~

It sets the tone. Winter frets over him, feeds him every time they stop--they drive the length of the eastern seaboard, stopping in tiny tourist towns that Peter finds fascinating and reminds Bucky of his life before the war. They avoid big cities and their memories and memorials, and Peter traces the arc reactor in the ice on the window, one morning, but aside from that, they don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about much, Bucky realizes.

~*~

Peter cries, sometimes. It makes something in Bucky ache, hearing his near silent sobs. They stop on a stretch of highway between towns, and he sits on the beach and Bucky can almost believe the salty drops sliding down his face is sea spray and not tears.

“Do you miss him?” he asks and Bucky doesn’t know how to answer.

 _Yes,_ so much it hurts, so much sometimes he can’t breath.

 _No._ Steve has been gone for so much longer than he can say, since before Titan, since before Hydra and that goddamn train.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s soft. A quiet admission.

Peter looks at him. “Did you love him?”

Bucky doesn’t answer, and Winter doesn’t answer, and the wind sweeps over them, and washes the questions away.

~*~

He does miss Steve.

But he also knows it’s different. It’s not the bone deep ache, the kind that wakes Peter in the night screaming, the kind that makes him dance on the edge of roofs, daring the wind to snatch him away and Winter to let it.

He misses Steve because he loved Steve, will always love him, in his own life altering way.

But Peter--every day, he spends with Peter, and every day, he thinks--this could be my true north.

~*~

Peter wakes up screaming three times in Florida, screaming and sobbing, begging Winter to let him go, begging for Tony, scratching at his skin and metal, until he slumped, exhausted and limp, in Bucky’s arms and cried himself back to sleep.

For the first time, Winter wonders if he should let him go.

~*~

They get on a plane, after that, leave behind the states and the inadvertant memories of what they lost. Peter sleeps against Winter’s shoulder, soft and insistent, and it coaxes something in him to loosen, to relax. His arm slips around the sleeping spider, holds him close, and his heartbeat pounds too loud in his throat, but he closes his eyes and thinks maybe they’re going to be ok.

Maybe, somewhere else, they can be ok.

~*~

Peter is quiet in Paris. He wanders the streets, presses too close and pulls away too far, and it’s confusing and expected. They go to the Louvre and Bucky trembles as Peter leans into him, pointy chin hooked over his shoulder.

They go to the Eiffel Tower and Peter blinks away tears.

They stay in a shitty hostel, and Peter crawls into his bunk and Bucky slips into his, and if he cries, the boy doesn’t mention it, the next morning. He just sits close and leans his head on Bucky’s metal shoulder as they sip their hot chocolate and watch pigeons.

Later, when they’ve walked so far that even Peter’s tireless energy has begun to flag, Bucky buys flaky croissants and sharp cheese and they sit on the curb of the street, sharing it, and Bucky tells him about the first time he came to Paris, during the war.

Peter listens, and their ghosts feel very far away.

~*~

They spend a day holed up in a hotel in London. Peter teaches him how to play poker. Bucky teaches him how to play with knives. He goes out once, and comes back with beer, thick and cheap and bitter on Peter's tongue, but it's easier to sleep, when he drinks.

"Tony used to drink too much," he says, once, when his eyes are drifting closed and the beer is gone. Bucky pets his hair back, and he thinks that should be strange, but it's not.

They go to the West End and Piccadilly Square and Peter drags Bucky on a red, double decker bus, riding it across London Bridge and past Big Ben.

"I could climb that," he says, lazily and Bucky laughs, something he feels against his back and he smiles.

They eat in a tiny pub that's tucked between a bookstore and a tailor. Bucky sneaks Peter his beer and Peter licks his salty fingers, and eats his way through two plate fulls of fish and chips, until his belly is full and his mind is fuzzy and he thinks maybe when he sleeps this time, he won't dream.

"Do you dream of them?" he asks, once, when they're collapsed in their separate beds.

"Yes," Winter murmurs and Peter blinks, bites back his shiver.

~*~

Stonehenge is deserted in the rain, and Peter thinks, Bucky standing in the rain and stone circle, hair clinging to his face and water sliding down his metal arm, looks like an ancient and pagan god.

Winter looks at him, his eyes bright in the gloom, and Peter smiles at him.

They go north, follow the road til it ends in the sea, and Peter sits there.

"Why do you like the water?" Winter asks, settled behind him and Peter leans back into his warmth.

"I don't know. I think--it reminds me of him? It's wild. Cold, but soothing too."

Winter doesn't respond to that.

"Can we go to the highlands, next?" Peter asks and Winter nods.

"Anywhere you want."

~*~

Sometimes, Peter will stop and he'll look at Bucky. It always startles him when it happens, because he can never tell when it will. But Peter will stop and he'll stare, his gaze piercing and intense, and sometimes--sometimes that's all, he looks away and turns the conversation and they move on, and he dismisses it as stray thoughts and things they don't talk about.

But sometimes, Peter will look at him and a smile will curl at the corner of his lips, shy and not quite there, but the hint of something that Bucky wants to chase, wants to tease out.

He wants to see something other than sadness and guilt in Peter's eyes, wants to see something other than lines on his face.

He wants to see Peter smile, and more than that--he wants to be the reason Peter smiles. It's terrifying and the day he realizes it--they're still in Scotland, in the Highlands, Peter loves it, the endless green mountains and rocky cliffs and the little hamlets they spend their nights in, with squinty eyed suspicious locals and food so good he doesn't even have to badger Peter into eating, he does it all on his own--he bolts away, spends almost twenty four hours gone, not quite lost, but hidden away enough that Peter can't find him, and he watches his boy.

He only comes back when he sees Peter curled in his bed, crying, and only because guilt is eating at his stomach, and he let's Peter curl against him, hand fisted in Bucky's shirt and trembling.

"You can't leave me," he whispers. "Not like--"

_Not like Tony. Not like Steve._

"I won't," he promises.

~*~

Peter seems to shake the melancholy when they reach Copenhagen. It lingers in his eyes, but there’s excitement too, and his hand, gripping Bucky’s, is eager and tight, tugging him behind as they weave through the crowds. They see the Little Mermaid and Rosenborg Castle.  Bucky holds him in a loose embrace, and Peter lets him, leans back into the embrace like this is normal for them.

He lead Peter through the market at Strøget, buys them piles of hot meatballs, sticky bread, a little bowl of pate and crispy crackers. Peter wrinkles his nose at that, but he licks his fingers clean, after, his pink tongue chasing the taste of it, and Bucky has to swallow hard and look away, biting into the last of their frikadeller before he crumples the trash together and tosses it aside.

“Where to next?”

The grin Peter gives him is bright and wicked.

~*~

Amsterdam is trouble.

Winter hates it, but Peter--Peter comes to life under the neon lights and cobbled streets. They go to a club, and he dances there, with Winter’s gaze heavy on him, a pale writhing, beautiful thing.

Other people watch him too. One is handsy, his grip on Peter loose and low on his hips and it burns, hot ugly jealous, in Winter’s throat, watching Peter smile at him, watching them grind together.

But he hears, the low dirty voice, and higher, clearer, Peter’s.

He hears _no_.

Winter moves fast, faster than he realized, crossing the distance and jerking the guy away from Peter. He gets a quick glimpse of Peter, the shock and disgust, the bruised wet lips, and then he’s hitting the bastard, the man who dared touch what isn’t his, and he can hear people screaming, but he can only _hear_ Peter, his voice high and outraged, and saying _no._

 _“Bucky,”_ Peter shouts, catching his fist. The guy is slumped, bloody and broken at his feet, and Peter is trembling and close, close, close--

“Come _on,”_ he hisses, and drags him out of the club.

~*~

They stumble into their hotel, and Peter trembles, and Bucky doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline or the fury, but he’s trembling and there are tears in his eyes that haven’t quite fallen.

He reaches for the joint, lights it and offers it up to his boy--his boy, when did Peter become _his--_ and when he doesn’t immediately take it, Bucky sighs.

He drags Peter onto the bed, situates him so they’re close, knees pressed together, and draws on the joint, letting the smoke fill him up, before tugging Peter close, close, almost close enough.

He wants to close that tiny distance, wants to cover up that stolen kiss with something softer and gentle and _wanted._

Peter doesn’t want him.

Peter wants a ghost, and Bucky wants Steve, and they are nothing more than companions forced together by life and loss.

He opens his mouth and offers up the pungent smoke like a lifeline and Peter leans into it, sighs and takes the gift.

~*~

Bucky watches him.

Winter watches, but Bucky--Bucky watches him and it’s different.

It’s heavier.

It feel warm and waiting, like if Peter will just turn into that gaze, there will be... _something..._ waiting for him.

He sees the fury on Winter’s face in the club, and the hunger on Bucky’s in their hotel, and he knows it’s dangerous, tilting toward him in the narrow bed, and letting smoke cloud his head.

He licks his lips and Bucky makes a noise, low and indistinct, and Peter.

Peter smiles.

~*~

He has nightmares in Berlin, and Peter shakes him awake, sits next to him on the couch, pressed together shoulder to thigh. They don’t talk. Sometimes, he thinks, they don’t talk because they understand each other far too well to need words.

Peter sits there, until the sun rises and creeps into their room and says, “Come on. Let’s find somewhere happier.”

~*~

They go to Greenland.

This time, they avoid the major cities, go to a tiny cabin in the middle of a field of ice, a place Bucky knows. He doesn’t say, but Peter thinks it must be a safehouse Hydra used. It’s dusty and dark, but it’s warm and dry, and Peter collapses into the big bed, a puff of dust coming from the sheets. Bucky busies himself with their bags, and he smiles, faint but happy, when he sees Peter, snoring softly.

They stay for a week. Peter spends half of it sleeping, and joins Buck on his long walks through the cold snow. They take a brief trip to Scorsby Sound, and watch whales and icefloes and Peter’s cheeks go pink and windburnt and beautiful.

“I like it here,” he says.

“I used to come here, after missions. Before I got pulled back in. It was empty. I liked it, the quiet.”

Peter looks at him and Bucky flushes under those heavy eyes, until Peter smiles, and catches his fingers, squeezing delicately.

The fourth night in Greenland, they spend under the stars, and Peter says, “I miss them, sometimes.”

“What was it like?” Bucky asks, softly. Carefully.

“Big,” Peter says. “I remember how small I felt, like I was going to get lost in the vastness of it.”

He doesn’t say, _Tony wouldn’t let me._

He doesn’t say, _I did get lost._

“I’m glad you came home,” Bucky says, hoarse, and Peter turns away from the stars, away from the shimmering Northern Lights to smile at him, bright and clear.

~*~

There is only one bed, and Peter thinks it should be stranger than it is. But falling into bed next to Bucky, curling into his warmth and listening to the soft beat of his heart under his ear--it’s not strange.

It’s natural and right, and he wakes from a nap, and stares at Bucky, at his stubble and the hair falling over his face, the lines that have eased around his eyes, and he thinks--he would keep this, if he could.

He thinks it’s the first thing he’s _wanted_ to keep since Tony died.

~*~

Peter refuses to go some places. Italy and Malta. They skip over both and land in Greece for trips through the Parthenon, and long mornings on beaches in Crete and bottles of ouzo. They eat olives soaked in spices and oils, pita bread stuffed with lamb and greens, until Peter lazes against Bucky’s shoulder and Winter doesn’t worry about how skinny he is.

They skip Africa and Mexico--too many bad memories, Bucky says--and wander through the Amazon for a few weeks. Peter still refuses to touch his suit, but for a few days, Peter swings through the trees, high above Bucky’s head, and it feels nothing like New York, nothing like Titan, nothing like life with Tony--and maybe that is why he can do this.

They spend a few days in Rio, and a week in Chile, and Peter dangles his legs from the edge of an Ande mountain and almost gives Winter a heart attack before he smiles, and they move on.

He notices the laughter there, echoing off mountains that scrape the sky, and he notices Peter’s slumped, tensionless shoulders in India, when he pets an elephant, and thinks--

There haven’t been nightmares in weeks.

Maybe.

Maybe.

He holds his breath and he hopes.

~*~

New Zealand reminds Peter, a little, of Scotland. It’s endless ancient beauty, the vibrant green, the _aliveness_ of it all.

“It almost feels like it never happened, here,” he whispers, and Winter doesn’t ask what he means, just hugs him a little bit closer.

He leans into it, and it doesn’t ache, not like it used to.

~*~

He has seen Peter in a thousand places, it feels like, has watched him under moonlight and sunshine, in rain and snow, under bright lights and shadow, in streets and cities and wilds, all around the world.

He thinks, sometimes, he has gotten used to looking at him.

And then Peter spills onto a beach in Australian, board shorts indecently low on his hips, a smile wild and wide and aimed right at Bucky, and it takes his breath away, all over again.

“Come snorkel with me,” Peter coaxes, and he does, follows, helpless to do anything else with this boy.

~*~

“Where next?” Peter asks, one day. They’re in Thailand, and Bucky rolls his head to look at his boy, lazy and content next to him in the heat. The sea shimmers beyond their stilted hut, and Peter looks--

Happy.

He looks happy.

“Anywhere,” he says, and Peter peeks at him.

“I’d go anywhere with you,” he says, honestly.

~*~

He’s seen the world, through a veil of tears and grief peeled back slowly, and when it was--when the agony gave way to relentless beauty of the world, bright and living around him, he saw the _world_ , exotic and beautiful and laid at his feet.

He saw Bucky, patient and worried, Winter, quiet and waiting. Always, always, watching him.

~*~

Peter kisses him carefully, and it tastes like seaspray and sand, like the mango and coconut curry he woke Peter with, and Bucky’s hands close over his hips, hold him steady, drag him closer,  rocks them together as Peter kisses him and kisses him and kisses him.

~*~

“Where next?” Peter asks, later. He’s naked and Bucky is mouthing at his hip, absentmindedly. Bruises are fading on his hips, and come is smeared on his belly and Winter flexes his fingers, just to feel Peter shudder and push back against them.

Too tired, he decides, to do anything. But the little whine Peter makes when he rubs his thumb over Peter’s swollen rim is delicious.

“Wherever you want, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

Not doll.

Not baby.

Not anything _they_ might have used.

But Peter smiles at him, shudders as he spreads his fingers and closes his eyes. Maybe not too tired.

“Alaska,” he huffs a moment before Winter kisses him, a moment before he slides deep, and the word twists into a groan.

He can see it now--Peter in the snow and sunlight, cheeks stained red and naked in front of a fire.

Bucky smiles. “Anywhere, sweetheart.”


End file.
